per aspera ad astra
by authenticaussie
Summary: Jason knows every star in the night sky from a lifetime of looking up and wondering what's outside Angel Grove. He knows myths and legends and the name of every visible planet, from Mars to Pyxis and back through to Andromeda. And he knows that there are no constellations like his soulmark.


**Happy Valentine's Day to lettersfromathief! This was for the ao3 Power Rangers romance exchange and my partner had the Best Taste. :D**

* * *

There are no constellations that match his soulmark.

At seventeen-and-stupid (at least, according to every fight he gets in with his dad), he knows through long research that no real constellation matches the stars that hover above his hip and shift with the turning of the season, but that still doesn't stop him from looking up to the sky.

Perhaps it's that lifelong conviction that the night is his that convinces him that every prank he plays and every rule he breaks needs to be accompanied by the stars.

Perhaps it's just stupidity, like his dad says it is.

Whatever it is, right now curfew has come and gone and Billy's yelling at him and so are Trini and Kim, and he can barely hear anyone over the sound of sirens and the sharp twinges of pain rocketing through his knee. There's a bang from the roof, and the top of the car dents. Everyone starts screaming _again, _so loudly that when he sees Zack's upside down grin in the moonlight he almost yells as well, sure that this face from the dark is here to catch him fucking up.

Then he realises it's just Zack, laughing like he's batshit, laughing like he's enjoying himself, and Jason scowls.

"What do I do?" says Billy, breathless and panicked, and Jason goes for the door.

"Keep _going, _" he says, because his dad's gonna kill him if he gets arrested again, and he doesn't want to explain to his case manager why he let a kid he just met disable his tracker and drag him out to private property to _blow stuff up. _"I'll pull him in!"

"Are you _kidding _?" he hears Kim say behind him, but he's already got the door open and his hand latched in the back of Zack's jacket.

Zack doesn't need much help, though. Like he's done like this before, Zack pulls himself upside down from the roof and tumbles into the car using Jason's arm, letting Jason slam the door shut behind him.

"Are you crazy?" he asks, and in the dark he catches the whites of Zack's eyes, the glint of his teeth, the way one cheekbone is highlighted bright blue by the light shining off the van, and the shimmer of a soulmark curving from his cheek to around his neck.

"Yeah," Zack says, laughing, like Jason has already started talking about fire and glory, like he's jumped off a cliff and hadn't expected to be caught, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be than in a swerving van with four strangers being chased by cops. "I am."

The glitter of constellations on his cheek look like gemstones, hiding themselves in the hollow of his cheekbones, and with Zack grinning at him like that, for a moment, Jason thinks about kissing him; thinks about how it would feel; thinks about swallowing down some of Zack's crazy and feeling it bubble in his stomach. Thinks about Zack leaning in closer, like_he _wants to kiss Jason.

Billy hits the accelerator; Trini screeches about crashing, Jason looks ahead and thinks about angles and flipping his truck and skidding and forward propulsion, and says, "We'll make it!"

They don't.

* * *

Jason's seven when he first starts to wonder about his soulmark. It's branded onto his hip, big and bright and pretty, and he likes running his hand through the light and watching the stars shift. He knows what stars are, and half-knows constellations from weeks spent at scout summer camp, but putting those two thoughts together still takes him a little while.

He's also seven, and he's not _stupid, _but he's not good at figuring things out for himself yet.

So Jason goes to his dad, his shirt hiked around his ribs, and he points at his constellation. "What's this star?" he asks, but his dad heaves a big, heavy sigh, and tries even harder to shove his feet into his gumboots.

"Ask your mother, Jason. I need to get to work."

"It'll just take a second," says Jason, stepping closer to his dad, and his dad's shoulders slump. He looks up, puts his hands on his knees, and leans forward.

"It sure looks like the star known as a freckle, to me," says his dad, and he reaches out to poke Jason in the side. He laughs, sort-of, the sound prodded from him from his dad's stout finger, and he drops his shirt over the mark. "Or maybe it's dirt you didn't clean off you when your mom told you to."

"It's not-" he tries, but his dad's already up and grabbing his hat.

"Just ask your mother, Jason," says his dad, and Jason stands by the door and watches his dad lock the door behind him.

He asks his mom, and she says, "I have to take this meeting, honey," and then, "Just give me a sec, I need to email Katya," and then, "Sweetheart, you can't be in the kitchen when I'm cooking, I'm trying to do too many things at once."

By the time they sit down at dinner, he's almost bursting with the question, in the impatient way that every child suffers with when they've been asked to hold onto something big. She listens through every ramble, watches him pull his shirt up, and then sighs and says, "Jason, pull your shirt down."

He stares at her, his elbows bent by his ears, and she puts her knife and fork down, resting her chin in her hands.

"Come on, I won't be able to see anything, anyway."

"Why?"

She pauses, thinking, and her eyes go to the left like she could find the thought in amongst her recipe books. "It's- generally, only your soulmate can see your mark. That's how you can be sure it's them. Because they can tell you exactly what your mark looks like without you telling them."

"So...mine can see stars?" he asks, and she nods slowly.

"And you'll see theirs, too. Sometimes it's hidden, under clothes or in an awkward place, but fate has a habit of showing you the marks whether you want to see where they're placed or not." She covers her smile with one hand, and says, "When you're older, remind me to tell you how I saw your dad's mark. He'll hate it."

He doesn't know why she can't tell him now, and he'd follow that avenue of curiosity, but a more pressing question is in his head right now. "You can't see it though, right?"

"Right."

"Great," he says, and folds his arms. "Now I have to figure out what it looks like by _myself. _"

She laughs, and for a moment, everything is fine. Everything is easy, and she takes him to the library the next day and helps him carry the thick stack of books back to their car.

He bends his head over astronomy texts for hours, commits the study of the stars to memory, learns myths and legends and how to track constellations through a telescope that his mom buys him when he's twelve.

But there are no stars that look like his mark.

(He moves it to his dad's study when he starts collecting football trophies.

He sells it after the accident.

He tries not to think about non-existent stars and imaginary constellations and how, maybe, just like there's no star that matches his mark, there'll be no person that matches it either.)

* * *

He wakes up in his own bed with a gasp, jolting up and out, his body thrumming with energy and fear. His foot kicks against metal, his brace discarded on the floor, and his eyes go wide.

He's seventeen, he's alive, and he's walking fine. He's walking fine, like his crushed knee was actually just an overworked muscle that needed a little rest, and he stumbles to the bathroom. There's no evidence of injury on his chest or his stomach, and he stares at himself in the mirror, cataloguing every place that'd hurt last night, but where he now has unbroken skin.

Stars glitter above his hip, a map of them that for so long had been hidden under dark purple bruising from the crash, and his stomach rolls at the sight, remembering Zack in the darkness and the tiny pinpricks of light that illuminated his face.

Jason barely makes it to the toilet before he throws up, and he spends the whole time (right up until the edge of the sink breaks in his hand), thinking, _it was just a trick of the light._

* * *

(When he next sees Zack at the mine site, Billy and Kim by his side, he keeps catching Zack's stars when Zack turns his head to the sun. They're hard to spot, like flickers in the corner of his eye, like sunspots or black dots, or rainbows in water droplets, but he knows they're there, now. He knows they're there, like a map to Zack's heart and all his sensitive insecurities, and he watches it get brighter every time Zack says, _you're crazy, but so am I! _)

* * *

"Just breathe," he told Billy when they stepped inside a spaceship sunk into the rock of a mountain and Billy's flashlight started to shake. "Just breathe, okay?"

"Okay," Billy said, and in the dark, Jason could see him nod jaggedly.

Trini gets attacked by a robot. They meet a face stuck instead a metal wall that looks like a pin model. They step into shoes that are - ironically, terribly, frustratingly - too big.

And then Jason sees _stars _and Billy says, "Hey, these're like my soulmark."

And he grins, like he hasn't said something that's made Jason's world spin on a new axis.

_Just breathe, _he thinks, and wishes someone else could give him that advice, because coming from his own head it's also coupled with _stupid, that's not gonna help you, _and _are you kidding, right now? You think breathing exercises are gonna help?_

...To be fair, it's not near as loud as it usually is. Mainly because Jason can get the negativity to shut up by replying, _I'm in an alien spaceship and I have two soulmates; I'm allowed to be freaked out._

(And he is. He definitely is.

But there's something nice in knowing that Billy - who beams at him when Jason coaxes him through a new social rule, who bubbles over with facts and an earnest desire to help, who oversteps his bounds but only because he's so excited, and it makes Jason think _cute _instead of _annoying _\- and Zack - recklessness incarnate, passion personified, laughter and a daredevil grin in his blood - are his soulmates.)

(Later he gets to add, _kind, loyal, strong, _but he doesn't know that about them yet.

He only knows that they have stars that match his, and that when Zack flips him over his shoulder and pins him down, his stomach is hot because of more than just sweat. And that when Billy lets his hand flutter over Jason's shoulder and press against his shoulderblade because Billy is_comfortable _with touching him, he's never felt anything more satisfying.)

* * *

Kinda stupidly, he forgets that Zack knows what his own mark looks like, and that when Billy says, _my mark looks like those stars, _Zack would've had the same thought as him; _this is my soulmate._

And Zack doesn't have the same knowledge Jason does, that Jason's mark matches Zack's and vice versa. (Or maybe, on and on in a line, their marks matching up till they make a sky.)

_They _don't make anything, because after they leave the ship, before they jump through the water again, Jason can hear Zack and Billy talking, quietly, just a little bit away from the rest of them.

"I have stars too," says Zack, and he points at his cheek.

Billy says, "Oh."

And then, "I don't want to take my shirt off here?"

Zack laughs, bright and loud in the caves, and it echoes off the stone, bouncing around until the water swallows it up. Jason thinks about laughing too, because of _course _Billy wouldn't want to take off his shirt, he's wearing about three of them and they're probably still soaked, but laughing means admitting that he's been eavesdropping and so he keeps his mouth shut and walks to the very middle of the pool.

"I have to get home," Zack says, and Jason tilts his head back to look up at the shifting waters above, "But if I go to school tomorrow, would you show me?"

"Okay," says Billy, and Jason closes his eyes and jumps up. They went first onto the platforms, stepping forward because of curiosity and adrenaline. Of course they would do the same to this.

He kinda wishes he hadn't closed his eyes, though, because he can still see silver light behind his eyelids, and the shifting colour makes him think about satellites and constellations and the ball of stars at the centre of Zordon's ship.

Stars that don't look like the ones from home.

Stars that prove his constellation exists.

Stars that match his mark - and his soulmates' marks.

* * *

Zordon likes talking to him alone.

Jason doesn't. It reminds him a bit too much of talking to his dad. Zordon_wants _something from them, wants to use them and live through them (...quite literally, to be fair,) and Jason hates how he acts. They should be a _team, _and even though teams have captains, he just...he _knows _that the type of captain this team needs might not be the leadership he can provide by listening to Zordon's advice.

So they clash, but not really, and Jason bites his tongue because _he _isn't a magic alien who knows his own new superpowers intrinsically and trained for a good portion of his life to wield them, but-

He's also not a huge dick. So.

He sorta thinks it balances out.

And, while Zordon is awkward, he likes Alpha 5. Now that he's used to Alpha's little buggy personality swings, he's fun to be around, and even though he's mean, his comments make Jason laugh.

Plus, it's better than being around Zack and Billy and watching Zack try to_touch _, physical and wanting, and having to avoid saying, _don't, Billy doesn't like being touched first. _Or when Billy chatters on about new interest and starts devolving into concepts beyond what Zack can conceptualise without further explanation, while Zack battles to keep still and listen. It's important to both of them, these and a million other tiny things, but they keep battering against each other like ships in a storm and all Jason wants to do is _fix _it.

But what's he supposed to say, "Hey, but, I think I'm your soulmate too? My stars are on my hip, and I can see Zack's forsure. Sorry I didn't bring it up earlier, but I was kinda distracted by almost dying and then the whole 'an alien expects you to save the world' thing."

Week one would have let him use that excuse. By week two, he's so frustrated it feels like it will burst out of him, and the excuse doesn't float anymore, but he still watches Zack and Billy mess themselves up and waits for one of them to realise he's missing.

Which is...kind of a stupid thing to wait for. Like Sedna's invisible moon, like their solar system's thirteenth planet, they don't even know that they're looking for him. He tells himself it's stupid, too, picks fights with Zack and watches Billy morph and yells at Zordon and he should leave, he knows, because they're waiting for him, but the stars in the centre of the bridge always draw his gaze, and he stops.

"Alpha," he asks, and Alpha makes an annoyed noise, because he doesn't want to talk and they all know Zordon's mad and listening in. "Where are these stars from?"

Alpha sighs, but it's an honest question, and he likes honest questions (it's probably the reason he gets on so well with Billy. That and Billy doesn't ask _stupid _questions, and can keep up with Alpha's scientific ramblings.) "That's the largest constellations that you can see from Eltar."

"Eltar?"

Alpha pauses, and he tilts his head one way, then the other, his neck moving with the almost inaudible sound of gears.

"Eltar," he says. "Zordon's - and my - home planet. It's...quite a fair while away from here."

"What does the constellation stand for?" Jason asks, staring at it, and Alpha makes a noise that's a bit like a clicking tongue.

"Travellers," Alpha says, and then he starts herding Jason out of the bridge because Zordon's wall of pins has started shifting and making increasingly annoyed ticking sounds as the pins click against each other. "Now you should go. Everyone's probably waiting."

This next question is stupid, which he knows will make Alpha chide him, but everyone _is _waiting, and everyone includes Billy and Zack, and Jason's been tripping over the pronunciation for a few weeks now and thinking about his soulmark always makes him think about his telescope and he misses the books that he sold.

"Alpha, your name, right," he starts, "Is it based on...Alphard? Or Alpha Centuri? The stars?"

Alpha laughs at him, a bit haughty, and says, "What part of '65 million years old' always confuses you? Your stars are named after _me _, not the other way around. Now _get. _"

(Jason wonders if Alpha knows his eyes are almost, almost, _almost _the same as the constellation in the bridge. The constellation for _traveller, _locked in his eyes as he travelled through space and slowly through time, to be where he was today.

Locked on Jason's hip and Zack's neck and on Billy's chest, the symbol for _ traveller _written in their stars.)

* * *

The armour, when it forms, looks exactly - and nothing at all - like he'd imagined it. It's flexible and light and strong and he watches Billy do a backflip and Zack crow in bright, blatant delight, and he can see their stars. In a diamond on their chests, each Ranger has a section of the constellation from the bridge, glimmering bright and shifting as fought putties, but in Billy and Zack's, the patch matches the marks.

When they get in the zords, he can see Zack clock his symbol, the fact that half of it matches up with Zack's and half matches with Billy's and his own half is pressed right in the middle of their constellation, and he knows that Zack has figured out what he could never find the words to explain.

He was gonna have to deal with it eventually, but he's kinda glad that he gets to save the world and almost die first.

Bad things always follow when he almost dies (he's done it three times now; Billy would definitely say that Jason could use it as evidence) but it's a cycle of something big and bad and even-worse that turns into something sorta-good. He thinks all he'll need to do is wait out the adrenaline, wait out the cheers and reverence, wait out his team and their joy, but almost as soon as they get underground, Zack comes stalking toward him.

He's pretty sure Zack's coming in to punch him. Just judging by body language, and the last time they fought, and the fact that Jason went, _hm, I don't think I'll tell my soulmates that I'm their soulmate _because there was still a voice in the back of his head saying _they don't exist _and _you aren't enough for them _and Zack probably figured out that that's why his bond with Billy has been weird and awkward around the edges, and then Zack grabs his cheeks and drags him into a kiss and Jason thinks _oh, not punching._

His mouth is hot and dry, from fighting, from pushing himself to make the megazord, and Jason knows he probably isn't much better, unless a category for better include a "above average temperature and super sweaty and also has chapped lips and blood in his mouth" but also-

He's breathless when Zack pulls back, but Zack looks proud of himself, those same blue-black shadows making him into beautiful sharp edges and stars, and Zack says, "I wanted to do _that _in the van."

"Why didn't you?" Jason says with a blink, and then he licks his tongue over his lips because he can still feel Zack's mouth against his own and it's an odd feeling.

"'Cause you seemed like one'a those people who're weird about soulmates," Zack says, tossing his head. He slides one hand off Jason's face, and holds it out behind him, and Jason can see Billy take it, squeeze, and then let go.

His shoulder is still brushing Zack's, though, and there's no tenseness around Zack's posture with Billy by his side and one hand on Jason's face.

"I'm not," he says, and then thinks about two weeks of staring at his mark and wondering if _maybe _it were wrong, if he had a star in the wrong place, if either of them would even _see _it, if maybe he was their soulmate but he wasn't theirs, if maybe he was Zack's but not Billy's, even though he stupidly, wanted them both. "Or, I thought I wasn't."

"I always thought they were chemical bonds," says Billy, who shrugs. "You know, like the ones that make up rock formations?"

"What?" says Zack, but Jason's mouth quirks at the corner.

"Everybody's weird," he says, and Billy nods.

"Yeah."

"I'm _crazy, _" Zack insists, but he's grinning, and he seems to have figured out what's going on. Jason steps forward, slinging his arm around Zack's hip so that they bump together when they walk toward their ship and their stars.

"Come on then, crazy," he says, and feels Billy lace their fingers together and give him a grin when Jason looks over. "Come be crazy with us weirdos."

* * *

His mark doesn't match any constellation he can see lying on a blanket in his backyard, staring up at Angel Grove's sky. Zack's doesn't, either, but Jason can feel the touch of it against his skin while Zack uses his stomach as a pillow, and while he can't feel Billy's he can count the thumps of Billy's heartbeat through his fingertips where they touch. It's easy to imagine his stars shifting in time.

_Their_ stars, shifting in time with every breath they take, forming a map that leads them to each other and to every future adventure.

It's kinda cool to know they're destined for space, anyway.


End file.
